Art in Review

Art in Review

By ROBERTA SMITH

Published: June 6, 1997

Steve McQueen

Marian Goodman Gallery

24 West 57th Street

Manhattan

Through June 28

The advance word on Steve McQueen, who is 28 and considered one of the brightest new stars in the expanding English firmament, is not quite confirmed by his first solo show in New York City. The salient characteristics of his film installations are their physicality and narrative openness: the first is a strength and the second is sometimes a problem. In particular, Mr. McQueen relies on post-modern ambiguity, and the viewer's ability to supply alternative readings, in a way that can be overly familiar.

On the physical side, however, there is clear originality. Mr. McQueen favors wall-to-wall, ceiling-to-floor projections that thrust images into the room to visceral effect; extreme camera angles and passing shots that make one super-conscious of the camera as both an object and a participant in the action, and dramatic sequences that emphasize the human body either in gigantic close-up or in motion. The artist, who appears in several sequences, and his actors are black, which makes race an intrinsic element of the work, a kind of linchpin between form and content.

In ''Bear'' (1993), the camera functions as a third person in a closely shot series of scenes in which Mr. McQueen and another man taunt, wrestle and embrace one another, shifting in their relationship from friends to competitors to maybe lovers, as their dark skins merge with and emerge from the blackness of the film and the room itself.

In ''Five Easy Pieces'' (1995), the camera hovers close to a tightrope walker, showing her feet, her tensed torso and the fierce concentration of her face, creating a sense of tension that sometimes turns sexual or sinister. Other moments, involving five Hula-Hoop-twirling teen-agers seen from above and a shot of Mr. McQueen urinating into a pool of water seen from below, come across as unfocused formal exercises.

The best work here is ''Just Above My Head'' (1996), which shows Mr. McQueen walking along a street. It is shot from such a low angle that only the top of his head and, occasionally, his face and shoulders appear on the screen, bobbing up and down and side to side at floor level, a little like a cork in water. The whole room seems to heave: the immense blank sky just above Mr. McQueen's head expands and contracts with his shifting rhythms, which also imply an invisible body of considerable size moving purposefully forward beneath the floor. The viewer is suspended between these two planes, somewhat like an ant watching a giant march into town.

Also good is a 55-second color film made in 1992 that shows two black men carrying tall potted palms as they cross a London street and board a bus. Clearly taking advantage of a chance encounter, the artist follows them with his camera as they move among a crowd of mostly white people with their plants towering overhead, like standard-bearers who are newly arrived in a foreign land and are seeking out its ruler. This early bit of ''found'' narrative has a clarity and cohesion that Mr. McQueen might give more thought to. ROBERTA SMITH

Photo: A detail from ''Bear,'' a 1993 film installation work by Steve McQueen, at the Marian Goodman Gallery. (Marian Goodman Gallery)